Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The London Mugging Map

UK charity Witness Confident has launched a new Google Map called StreetViolence.org that allows victims of street robberies and assaults to add the crime to a Google Map. The charity believe the map will alert the community to potential risks, allow victims to post appeals for witnesses and can be used to thank passers-by who helped.

The UK government already provides a crime map for all of England and Wales, which is available at Police.uk. However Witness Confident argue that the government's map does not allow users to distinguish violent crime carried out by strangers from domestic or acquaintance violence, which leads users to believe that 'the risk to them of violent crime is worse than it is'.

Currently the map appears to be populated with 'Test Markers' which I'm pretty certain will also lead users to believe that crime is worse than it is. Presumably the test markers will be removed soon.